Noticeboard

The practice does not tolerate abusive behaviour against any member of staff. This includes comments made on social media ie. Facebook, Twitter etc.

From 1 April 2013 Repeat and Acute Re-issue prescriptions will be ready for collection 48 working hours after order is received.

PLEASE NOTIFY RECEPTION OF ANY CHANGES OF ADDRESS OR OTHER DETAILS.

It is also important that you notify the hospital of any changes in your details. If you have changed your address or name, or phone number or your GP please phone Altnagelvin Hospital on 02871 345171 extension 3446 or 3447 so that your appointment etc is sent to the correct address

Cancelling your Appointment

If you are unable to attend an appointment with one of the doctors or nurses, please cancel your appointment. You can telephone or use the cancel appointment facility on our website.

By giving us as much notice as you can you are helping us to make sure that someone else is given your slot.

WHEN WE ARE CLOSED:

Patients with an urgent medical condition, which cannot wait until the surgery is open, may contact the Out-of-Hours Service—WESTERN URGENT CARE— by phoning

Appointments

The doctor will see you in surgery by appointment.

Seeing a Doctor

Appointments can be made with the receptionist in person at reception, or by phoning the surgery on 028 7776 6354. There are receptionists available throughout the day to answer phone calls—at busy times we would ask you please to be patient. We aim to answer all phone calls as promptly as possible and do not like to keep callers waiting unnecessarily.

The doctors consult between the hours of 9.00 to 10.30 am and 2.30 to 5.00 pm Monday to Friday. The exact surgery hours vary with each doctor.

The appointment system is for your convenience and we try to keep to time: however, occasionally delay will occur. Please bear in mind some problems take longer than others and please be patient if you have to wait (some day you may be causing the delay!).

When a patient rings the surgery to request a same day assessment by the GP they may be offered a telephone triage assessment with a GP. If your problem is urgent you will be seen on the same day although this may involve a short wait at the surgery. We offer appointment bookings for 48 hour access and advance booking (up to 2 weeks in advance) for routine matters. To see a specific doctor there may be a longer wait. The receptionist will ask for some details to prioritise all bookings.

Please try to arrive on time for your appointment and cancel any unwanted appointments as soon as possible. Your help is appreciated.

Home Visits

We do provide a home visiting service for those patients who are too ill or too frail to attend the surgery. If you require a home visit please (except in genuine emergencies) try to telephone us before 10.00 am as this helps our Doctors to plan their time efficiently.

Please be prepared to give the receptionist a brief outline of the problem as this helps us see the most appropriate cases first. Please note that our receptionists will only add visit requests to our daily visit list, ultimately it will be the Doctor who decides if your request for a visit is appropriate. If they decide that it is not appropriate for you to be visited at home, you will notified by telephone and informed you that you will need to attend the surgery to be seen.

Home Visits Guidelines

If you require a home visit please expect that you will be required to give the receptionist some indication of the nature of the problem. This then permits the doctor to make some assessment of the urgency of your request.

Our home visit guidelines are as follows:-

Home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving a medical opinion in cases involving the terminallyill or the truly housebound patient for whom travel by car would cause a significant deterioration in their medical condition.

Following a conversation with a health professional, it may be agreed that a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GP’s visit. Alternatively doctors may decide that an ambulance to take the patient to hospital may be more appropriate than a home visit.

GP visit is not appropriate

In most of these cases a visit would not be an appropriate use of your GP’s time or best for the patient, for example:

EmergenciesIf you believe a patient is seriously ill and needs an urgent visit, a doctor will call you back to assess whether the patient can wait for the doctor to visit or if an emergency ambulance needs to be called.

In this case it is essential to get the patient to hospital as soon as possible and the correct approach is to call ‘999’ for an ambulance.

Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually readily transportable and able to travel to the surgery. It is also likely that they would be assessed & treated more rapidly and effectively by attending the surgery, rather than waiting for a doctor to visit.

Please note: it is not harmful to take a child with fever outside.

Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, general malaise, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the doctor’s surgery.

Summary

Home Visits are reserved for those patients who are too ill or too frail to attend the surgery. They are not a way for patients to resolve personal transportation problems. If a lack of transport is the only reason for requesting a home visit, then please note that your request will almost certainly be considered as inappropriate, and you will therefore be asked to come to the surgery to be seen.

Please remember home visits after 12-noon are reserved for genuine emergencies only. After this time there is only one doctor ‘on-call’ and the time taken for a single home visit could be used to see up to 10 more patients at the surgery.

If you request a home visit after 12-noon, it is likely that the ‘on-call’ doctor will telephone you to assess the urgency of situation and to decide whether the patient should be brought to the surgery where we have the necessary facilities and to best deal with the problem.

Telephone Consultations

If you need to speak to the doctor on the telephone, the receptionist will take your name, contact telephone number and a brief description of why you are calling and a message will be left asking the GP to return your call. If the matter is urgent the doctors may also be available to take your call in the afternoon between 2.00 and 2.30 pm.

In cases of emergency, a doctor can be contacted between 8.30 am and 6.00 pm.

DNA POLICY

The practice has become increasingly concerned about patients failing to attend for pre booked appointments.

The practice has developed the following policy to try to improve the situation.

If you are unable to attend an appointment with either the doctor or nurse we would ask you to phone 028777 66354 Monday-Friday 8.30am to 6.00pm.

If you fail to attend for 2 consecutive appointments without contacting the practice we will write to you asking for an explanation, if after this you fail to attend for a 3rd appointment you will be invited to speak to the practice manager and you may be removed from the practice list if the problem persists.

A register will be held of patients who regularly DNA with a record of action taken, letters sent out, interviews with the practice manager or removal from the list.